United States Ambassador to Algeria: Who Is John Desrocher?

John P. Desrocher, a career member of the Foreign Service, was nominated June 21, 2017, to be the United States ambassador to Algeria.

Desrocher, who’s from New York and is a 1986 graduate of Georgetown University, started his State Department career with stops in Monrovia, Liberia, and Bonn, West Germany. He also served in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative working on free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore. Desrocher also served as the State Department desk officer for Iraq, experience which would serve him well later in his career.

Desrocher was serving as economic officer in the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem in 1999 when he helped get Palestinian customs agents to destroy bootleg 17,000 CDs of American musicians’ work. During 2005-2006, he served as a counselor for economic and political affairs in the embassy in Cairo.

In 2006, Desrocher began a stint as consul general in Auckland, New Zealand. He returned to Washington in 2009 to work as director of the Office of Iraq Affairs, serving for a time as acting deputy assistant secretary for Maghreb affairs. Desrocher was sent to Baghdad in 2013 as economic minister counselor and deputy chief of mission. He returned to the United States the following year and in September 2014 was named deputy assistant secretary for Egypt and Maghreb affairs, a job he held until being named ambassador.

Desrocher is married to Karen Rose. He speaks French, German and Arabic.